An Old Flame Burning
by TM3 Dinobot
Summary: Tigress tries to get Dinobot back into the Maximal lines......by ANY means necessary. SEQUEL TO "OPTIC SENSOR OF THE TIGER".


Tigress sat down at one of the gun turrets outside the new base, with   
a small hologram projector in her hand. She flipped a switch on the side, as   
she felt a lump forming behind her throat. "...oh, why did you have to leave   
me?..." she sighed at the projection she was holding. The projector had a   
rendering of her beloved, Dinobot, sword and rotary shield in hand. If she   
weren't a Transmetal robot, she could have felt a tear rolling down her   
cheek.   
  
Suddenly, the door to the cavernous base opened, and Tigress saw   
Black Arachnia and Silverbolt strolling through, arm in arm. "Where are you   
two going?" she asked from her post rather gloomily. Silverbolt managed to   
look up at her, even though he never really had that much of a neck to begin   
with. "Our tasks were completed for the day, so Optimus gave us a little   
time off."  
"We're just going out for a while," Black Arachnia continued.   
Silverbolt leaned over to Black Arachnia so Tigress couldn't hear much of   
what he was saying. "Time for us to have a little......private time!" he   
said jokingly. Black Arachnia new he was kidding, but gave him a little   
punch in the shoulder.  
  
"Well, make sure to take care of yourselves," Tigress said. They   
were about to make off, when Black Arachnia caught a glance at what Tigress   
was holding in her hand. "Hang on, Bowser-Boy," she said flirtatiously.   
"I'll be right back." She climbed up to Tigress' post, and saw that she was   
looking dismal again. She had known the tiger for some time now, and had   
always hated it when Tigress had her hologram projector in her hand. Tigress   
looked up to Black Arachnia, and said softly, "Hang on to that bot you have.   
You have no idea how lucky you two are."  
  
  
  
Megatron's new and latest project was almost complete. He and his   
"loyal" band of Predacons had been working on a huge robotic creature for   
several decacycles now, and it was with much satisfaction that it was almost   
done. It vaguely resembled Optimus Primal, who at this point had become   
optimal thanks to Optimus Prime. Megatron called Dinobot in for a new   
assignment, although it sounded like one he had already done. "Dinobot!   
Proceed to the Maximal base and make an attempt to capture the tiger."   
Dinobot, although perfectly alright with the thought of ripping a helpless   
female to shreds, had to interject. "Hhhmm. Are you positive that this   
would be the wisest course of action? We are busy enough as it is with   
Operation Master Blaster, aren't we?" he asked raising a hand at the huge   
robot.  
  
Megatron had been under a lot of stress with the operation, and lost   
his temper even faster that normally. "I will not tolerate your insolence!!"   
he yelled. "You are to retrieve Tigress and hold her hostage until those   
Maximal fools surrender the Ark's access codes. Now, GO!" Dinobot gave out   
a deep growl as he always did, transformed to beast mode, and trudged to the   
Darkside's open hatchway.  
  
"...Give you the slag access codes....." he mumbled to himself.  
  
  
Tigress was on the verge of falling asleep several hours after Black   
Arachnia and Silverbolt left. Without warning, she saw a large tree   
somewhere off in the distance, and heard a corresponding explosion. It   
toppled over, leaving a well- defined hole in the forest's canopy of foliage.   
"Tigress to Optimus," she radioed.  
"Optimus here, what's the situation?"  
"I spotted an explosion in Grid Peistra. I'm going in to check it   
out."  
"I'll send in Cheetor for backup as soon as you need him. Optimus   
out."  
Tigress grumbled to herself. "Sorry, Big Guy, but three's a crowd." And   
with that, she leaped from her post at the gun turret, transformed in mid   
air, and flew to Grid Peistra.  
  
Dinobot was starting to have second thoughts about his mission. What   
was the point of him sweating over the capture of one measly Maximal, when in   
a few days they could take over the entire base? Quickstrike would soon be   
controlling Optimus through the huge robot the other Preds had been working   
on. That plan should work, right? Dinobot knew that his talents shouldn't   
be wasted for a mission as useless as this! "I don't know why I'm out here,"   
he said to himself. "I should continue working on the project back at base   
and making sure it's either a definite victory or a definite failure! I   
can't waste my efforts one Maximal at a time!" In his frustration, he had   
shot down a 200 ft. evergreen with his unmatched optic laser.  
  
Dinobot kicked himself. "Slag! There's goes my cover." Dinobot   
sighed, and continued toward the Maximal base. "Well, there's no turning   
back now. Tigress, come and get me!" He trudged through the thick forest   
floor, and slipped on a rock in a nearby stream, missing his footing. As a   
robot designed only to navigate on solid terrain, Dinobot was having a   
tremendous amount of trouble trying to stagger back to his feet. He wasn't   
equipped to handle the seemingly frictionless stones in the bottom of the   
riverbed. Just before he was reduced to flopping around aimlessly like a   
trout in mating season to desperately try to leap out of the stream, he heard   
jets flying somewhere overhead. He looked up to see Tigress hovering in   
robot mode above him, aiming her quasar cannon at his face. The last thing   
he saw, were two green bolts of light slamming into his forehead.  
  
"Trust me, that hurt me worse than it did you..." she mumbled to   
herself, as she dragged Dinobot across the rocky forest floor.  
  
  
  
Dinobot came to some time later, only to find himself tied up against   
a boulder. Tigress had found some spare ion hoops at the base, and managed   
to bring them along. "Well well, look who's finally awake," Tigress said   
walking in front of him. "I don't know how you managed to get me here, but I   
can assure you that it was a mistake!" Dinobot aimed his optic laser   
straight in the middle of Tigress' head, and opened fire. She simply stood   
there, flipping a small piece of glass in her hand. "What???" Dinobot   
exclaimed. "Why isn't my laser functioning?!" Tigress walked up closer to   
him. "Sorry, but while you were unconscious, I took the liberty of removing   
the lense from your eye." She flashed the small piece of glass in front of   
Dinobot's face. "You get it back when I let you go, capisce?"   
  
Dinobot grumbled. "Why have you brought me here?" he asked.   
"Holding me hostage for your Maximal comrades, are you?" Tigress sighed.   
"No, unfortunately. This is on really more of a personal level." Tigress   
walked closer to him and stared into his optics. "Now," she said. "Tell me   
who you are." Dinobot felt rather foolish having been captured and   
interrogated by a Maximal, and a female one at that, but realized that he had   
no choice. Dinobot cleared his throat. "Uh, I am Dinobot of the Predacons.   
I have only been fighting in the Beast Wars for about six weeks now, and...."  
  
"BZZZZ!" Tigress buzzed, imitating a game show buzzer. "Wrong!" And   
she slapped him across the face. "Let's try to get the real answer, shall   
we?" she said, glaring at him. "What do you want out of this?" Dinobot   
asked, frustrated.  
"A while back, I knew someone. He was a Maximal, on the handsome   
side, a bit gruff, but.....he was my lover."  
Dinobot sniffed. "And who was this fool, may I ask?"  
Tigress leaned over him. "You were," she said, and kissed him deeply   
on his metallic lips. Dinobot squirmed for a moment, but then oddly relaxed.   
As far as he could tell, he had never been kissed by anyone in his short   
existence. But Tigress' kiss seem vaguely familiar.  
Tigress continued. "All I'm trying to do, is get that Maximal back.   
And you're the key, Scale-Belly," she said, trying to hold back a little   
grin.  
"And what if that Maximal never comes back, Lame-ess?" Dinobot   
retorted.  
"I'll just have to dig in deeper, Dino-Fart."  
"Lug-nut..."  
"Zip-Drive..."  
"Locust..."  
"Credit-risk...."  
  
  
  
"Inferno," Megatron commanded from his control chair. "Status   
report." Inferno gave a deep bow that made Megatron's gear shifts squirm   
with utter disgust.  
"The Master Blaster is nearly complete, My Queen." Megatron roared.   
"....if I have told you once I have told you 478,205,863,985,832,068,320   
times! DO NOT CALL ME THAT!!!!"  
Quickstrike then hovered his way to the Bridge. "Actually Boss, I   
count 478,205,863,985,832,068,321. He he heh." Megatron at this point and   
TOTALLY lost his temper. He threw his arm at Quickstrike and knocked him off   
his hover-platform. Quickstrike landed safely on a boulder protruding from   
the lava, but he was engulfed in magma from the waist down. Half of his   
entire body was gone.  
  
"...Get to the CR chamber!.." Megatron growled to Quicktrike. "Sure   
thing Boss...Ow!" he replied as he carried himself off to the repair room.   
"Inferno, go retrieve Dinobot," Megatron commanded. "It is time for the   
conquest to commence...yes!" Inferno thought about giving his Queen a polite   
kiss on the hand, but then thought better of it and said "As you command."  
  
  
Meanwhile, a similar conversation was taking place back at Maximal   
central. Optimus beginning to get worried. "You didn't find a trace of   
her?" he asked to Cheetor. He had just returned from a scouting mission, and   
failed to find his target. "No, sorry Bigbot. Either she's in stealth mode   
or in Megatron's jamming zone, or she's..." Cheetor gulped. "...Offline."  
Just then Black Arachnia and Silverbolt arrived back at the base.   
They strolled in, looking exhausted. Everyone could see that Black   
Arachnia's spider legs were twitching, and Silverbolt's "loin cloth" was   
clearly off center from its normal position.  
  
Rattrap tried to hold in his laughter at Silverbolt's appearance.   
"Eh, hey Boid- dog, what have you been doin'? You look totally drained."   
Silverbolt turned to him. "Yes, thank you..." he panted.  
"Black Arachnia, any idea where Tigress might be?" Optimus had   
caught her before she retired to her quarters. "Uh....hmmm," she said,   
trying to think. "I...couldn't tell you. I'm clueless." Silverbolt stepped   
in front of Optimus. Now that Optimus was two stories high, it was usually   
more difficult to get his attention than in the past. "I shall retrieve her,   
sir," he said with a cheap salute. "All right," Optimus said after a moment.   
"But be careful, and contact us as soon as you find her." Silverbolt nodded,   
and flew out of the base in beast mode.  
  
  
  
Meanwhile, Tigress was still explaining to Dinobot his history in the   
Beast Wars. He had no idea that he had this much of an impact on these   
things and was just eating it up. "So, you're telling me that I stood up   
against not only Megatron, but the entire Predacon platoon just to save a   
few measly humans?" Tigress didn't agree with the word "measly", but thought   
that he was getting the general idea. "Why would I go out of my way on a   
mission as impossibly hopeless as that?" he asked her. Tigress shook her   
head. "I don't know, but I want that Dinobot back." She looked down at her   
chest where her Spark was. "....And that's not the ONLY thing you did."  
"What do you mean?" Dinobot asked, his head tilted to the side.  
"Well, about a week before your brawl with the Predacons, we were   
both feeling a little, well.....anxious....."  
"Oh, Primus, no......" Dinobot gasped.  
"Yes," Tigress replied. "Mistakes were made, and soon you had a   
son."  
"Uh, had?"  
Tigress' face seemed to sag as she told him. "Yes, you had a son.   
He was born, but we didn't have a body at hand. Rhinox configured a jar-like   
canister I could keep the Spark in. It could communicate with us and visa-  
versa, but that was all." Dinobot's optics widened anxiously. "...And what   
happened?" he asked after a brief moment of silence.  
"Well, of course you heard that Rampage attempted to destroy the   
Axalon, but the rest of the Maximals and I managed to salvage the main body   
of the ship. We relocated the remains into the cave where the Ark is, but we   
found my quarters flooded in the river. I reached in and found the canister   
with my son inside....and found it empty. Extinguished. Shorted out by the   
icy water!" Tigress leaned against the boulder Dinobot was tied to, as if   
she were about to burst into tears. Dinobot managed to stroke her hand with   
his sickle-like fingers. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.  
  
  
  
This tender moment also seemed to ring a bell for Dinobot, for some   
unknown reason. However, it was rudely interrupted by the sound of jets some   
hundred feet in the air. Actually it sounded more like the first Martian   
flying saucer prototype, but Dinobot and Tigress immediately identified the   
sound as Inferno.  
  
"Oh slag!!" Dinobot and Tigress exclaimed simultaneously. Tigress   
looked around quickly, and then back to Dinobot. "I have to let you go!" she   
said. As she was saying this, she was deactivating the ion hoops that bound   
Dinobot to the boulder. "Now go. Get out of here! We can't be seen   
together." Dinobot stepped in front of her before she could run off back to   
base. "Wait!" Dinobot cried. "I've got an idea."  
  
  
  
A few moments later, Inferno landed a few dozen yards behind Dinobot,   
hearing the screech of his optic laser firing. Inferno ran up to Dinobot,   
flame thrower in hand, to reinforce him. "The Royalty commands that you   
return to The Colony!" he said to Dinobot in his Jamaican-like voice.   
"Wait," Dinobot interrupted. "Come take a look at this!" Dinobot stepped   
aside, and Inferno could see Tigress' body sprawled against the ground,   
seemingly lifeless. He could see smoke rising and carbon scoring on her   
chest from Dinobot's laser, and the expression on her face that can portray   
only one emotion; shock of total betrayal. A broad, toothy grin stretched   
across Inferno's face.  
"The Royalty will be pleased with you!" he exclaimed.  
"Ah, won't he..." Dinobot replied, smiling proudly at his ghastly   
deed.  
  
Inferno pushed himself into the air. "Come. The Royalty awaits us,"   
he said, and took off. Dinobot transformed to beast mode, and turned around   
to Tigress' body. He smiled to himself deviously as he ran off back to the   
base.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Silverbolt soared through the sky, scanning the entire landscape for  
anything that even remotely might resemble a Transmetalized female robot.   
Suddenly, a glint of reflected sunlight bounced off of something on the   
forest floor. "There she is!" Silverbolt declared to the parallel dimension   
of the TV and Internet audience. He swooped down and transformed to robot   
mode before he set foot on the ground. He was shocked to see Tigress lying   
limp on the ground, and ran closer to her. "Tigress! Are you all..." but he   
stopped in mid-sentence. He was terrified to see her chest completely   
blasted away, leaving her Sparkless. "Primus no!" He hefted her up in his   
arms, and flew as fast as he could back to base. "Hang on Tigress. Hang   
on!" he said to her lifeless body. He realized that there was little or no   
chance of Tigress surviving, but he felt like he had to do something!   
  
  
Silverbolt got her back to base, and everyone at the base was   
devastated by their loss. Optimus and Rhinox felt they had lost a very dear   
soldier and friend to them. Silverbolt and Black Arachnia missed her, but   
now knew just how fortunate they really were to have each other. Cheetor   
missed her especially, since she was not only a cat-bot like him, but he   
felt they could both really communicate since they were both the slightly   
more immature units in the Beast Wars at this point. Rattrap felt depressed   
just because, and Depthcharge just went about his business, not even a rat's   
skid-plate about the reduction of the Maximal team.   
  
  
  
Megatron and the Predacons, however, were extremely pleased with the   
outcome of Dinobot's mission. Megatron had known all along that the first   
Dinobot was in love with Tigress, and considered this the 'final test of   
loyalty'. The rest of the Preds, except for Tarantulas who was still lurking   
around in his lair doing Primus-knows-what, liked the idea of the Maximal   
lines down to seven, instead of the previous eight. However, many of them   
were a bit upset, pondering how fun it would actually be if they did it   
themsleves.  
  
  
The next morning, Optimus and Rhinox dutifully gathered the remaining   
Maximals for Tigress' recycling ceremony. Optimus thought more than fitting   
that he should say a few words. "We had not known for Tigress for very   
long," he began. "But she was one of us. She was a soldier. A teammate.   
A friend. Perhaps she was the purest of Spark of all of us, trying to   
convince her former beloved to join the Maximal ranks again." (The Maximals   
identified the laser blast on her chest as one of Dinobot's.) "And so,   
Tigress, we hope that you have found peace within the Matrix." Optimus   
nodded to Rhinox, and he flipped a switch. Silverbolt embraced Black   
Arachnia for a long moment as Tigress' body seemed to disintegrate into   
nothingness, as Rattrap, Cheetor, Optimus and Rhinox saluted her.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Some weeks later, Dinobot was sneaking around the corridors of the   
Darkside, and into his quarters. He looked around the room to make sure that   
no one could be listening to him. He'd seen Tarantulas do that, and always   
double-checked. "Are you alright?" he asked himself. Dinobot twitched   
slightly. "Dinobot, why do you always have to risk yourself like that? You   
could have killed yourself!" he replied to himself in an angry feminine   
voice. "Look, am I still online?" he asked himself in his normal voice.  
"Well, yes..." his feminine voice replied.  
"Then stop worrying."  
"Dinobot, I love you. I don't want you to throw yourself in front of   
a fusion cannon every chance you get the opportunity, alright?"  
Dinobot sighed at his feminine voice. "Okay, Tigress, I'll try to be   
more careful next time..." he said, rolling eyes.  
Tigress resumed control of Dinobot's body, and put her hands on her   
hips. Or should I say, she put his hands on his hips.  
"It also seems like ever since you downloaded my Spark into your body   
you've been taking more risks than usual."  
Dinobot grinned. ".......Perhaps!...." he said and gave a little   
chuckle. "By the way," he inquired. "How do you like my body?"   
Tigress shook her head. "It's okay, I guess, but it's hard to grab   
things with these fingers of yours," she said, waving her hand in no   
particular direction.  
"You'll get used to them," he replied.  
  
They sat there silently for a moment. "Hey Dinobot?" Tigress said at last.   
"With my Spark in your body, would we be considered a schizophrenic, or a   
robo- hermaphrodite?"   
  
  
  



End file.
